Alexandre de Moraes, judge of the Supreme Court of Brazil, stated this Thursday that the suicide bomber who tried to enter the court on Wednesday intended to blow up the building, framing the event in a growing wave of attacks against democracy.
The explosions outside the court and in a nearby parking lot, which federal police called attacks, raised security concerns days before the G20 summit in Rio de Janeiro and Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to the capital. , Brasilia.
Police identified the man who committed suicide outside the Supreme Court as a former council candidate from former President Jair Bolsonaro’s right-wing party with a history of heated political rhetoric online.
A police report seen by Reuters, confirmed as authentic by people familiar with the matter, said Francisco Wanderley Luiz, 59, threw an object at the court building that caused no damage, then lay down on the ground and an explosion exploded. homemade bomb that killed him.
Brazilian electoral records show Luiz lost a 2020 race for the city council of Rio do Sul, in the southern state of Santa Catarina, as a member of Bolsonaro’s right-wing Liberal Party.
Did you act alone or in a coordinated manner?
Moraes, who is among the Supreme Court judges targeted by threats for overseeing investigations into Bolsonaro and his supporters, said Luiz may have acted alone, but that the attack was the result of rhetoric that dates back to the former president’s government.
He called the explosions the worst attack on the Supreme Court since Bolsonaro supporters ransacked the building last year.
Meanwhile, the director general of Brazil’s Federal Police said that the evidence found in the attacker’s house points to a direct connection between Wednesday’s attack in Brasilia and a January 8, 2023 riot against institutions.
Bolsonaro distanced himself from Wednesday night’s violence, saying on social media that it was an isolated incident caused by a person with mental health issues.
I had more explosives
Police found more explosives in a house Luiz was renting in Brasilia, which were detonated with a bomb-defusing robot. His mobile phone was later found in a parked trailer.
Before and after losing the 2022 elections to Lula, Bolsonaro sowed doubts about the legitimacy of the electoral system and attacked the Supreme Court’s decisions as illegitimate.
Brazil’s top electoral court banned Bolsonaro from holding public office until 2030 because of that rhetoric, and federal police are investigating his role in an alleged coup plot after the vote. Bolsonaro has denied any wrongdoing and his party insists he will be its presidential candidate in 2026.
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